I think it's a lack of marketing. People don't understand and are stuck in inertia.

- algorithm = the general public do not understand what that means or why it's bad.
- bluesky owners - same, they don't see it materially affect their experience, the people who don't move, so inertia means they stay.

Interaction - lots of people are lurkers, and here, if you don't interact, it's boring

Based on my own experience and after talking to a larger circle of friends and acquaintances, this is my belief as well.

The prevailing sentiment is: With the world going to shit, why am I spending hours online when I could spend it with loved ones?

It seemed like a few others had blogs, so I started making a list. The first few were new starts just like me but as I kept looking I started to find more and more hobby blogs that have been regularly posting for nearly twenty years. The latest discovery was this month, and I added another eight or so blogs to my list.

When the rest of the world moved on to Facebook, Twitter and wherever else they never left. They just kept plugging away, their community may have dwindled, but it never died.

Niche survives just fine, and can be plenty sufficient for the people there.

I think you nailed it @faultcraft

It's dark times man. Most people don't want to acknowledge that, and the people that keep me here in the Fedi are the ones bearing whiteness to the failing of the light.

I've had about a hundred different versions of this conversation with my coworkers as well. Most people, by a wide margin, are not rational. They don't organize their worldviews and beliefs around abstract systems of knowledge.

Not to say that most people are all (or even mostly) MAGA or Qanon types. Simply saying that in the face of todays hyper-complex systems -social media, the economy, or the systems of knowledge that underpin technology, geopolitics- these people buckle. They just want to raise their kids and pretend its going to work out in the end.

The Fedi isn't offering that. That's OK too. AI aliens videos making fart jokes is good enough to ignore the ICE wolves circiling outside their doors. Most people need pain, personal intimate -and tragic- to contextualize what's happening outside their bubble of 100+- friends & family.

I’ve also included stats from Bluesky, nobody there publishes a MAU number, so I use Daily Likers as a proxy. It’s basically same order of magnitude as Masto (really makes you wonder why you would put $100M into that). (1/2)

Though I really with more folx here reported and suspended the intimate image abuse accounts.